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TEACHING MILLIONS ~ Robert Raikes ~ Robert Raikes was the forty-four year old publisher of the Gloucester Journal when he took a Sunday ride into the country looking for a man he could hire as a gardener. The sun was bright, the air heavy, and just a hint of breeze stirred up the dust of the road on that typical English morning in 1781. The outgoing Raikes was well known in his community, not only for his strong, often biting editorial campaigns but also for his wealth. The publisher who had become rich the old fashioned way, he had inherited a fortune from his father. Yet rather than sink in a world of debauchery, using his inheritance as a means of living the high life, this husband and father had employed his resources to serve the underprivileged in the area. Nowhere had his concern and compassion been more evident than when he led a fight for the rights of prisoners at the local jail. The editorial driven battle had initially caused a drop in his paper's circulation because his crusade proved to be unpopular, especially with his wealthy peers. But Raikes did not care about the financial toll; he was simply interested in seeking Christian justice. Raikes's push for prison reform was not based on church learned morality. He saw the movement as logical. He argued that prisoners were resources who, if properly trained, could find a place in and serve society. With skills given them during their incarceration, they could eventually secure honest work. Investing in men while they were behind bars would benefit everyone by creating a more peaceful community. This made more sense than starving and beating prisoners, thus crating men who were even more violent and releasing them on the streets. No one was safe if this continued. Surprisingly, Raikes's campaign was so successful that Gloucester went so far as to crate educational programs in the city prison facilities. This was something the publisher was proud to hang his hat on. But that was yesterday’s news; now he had to find a gardener to keep his estate from becoming an overgrown eyesore. As he knocked on the door of the modest rural home, Raikes surveyed the well kept grounds. Just then a tiny woman answered the door. You must be Mr. Raikes, she said. Yes I am. My husband had to leave for a few minutes, but he will be back soon. Would you like to come in and wait? The publisher shook his head. No, thank you. I thing I will just sit on here and enjoy the view of your gardens. The quietness of the pastoral scene, the beauty and clean smells of nature, filled the man's senses. In the city where he worked, noise was constant. This was moment he wanted to treasure. But the tranquility was temporary, soon replaced by screams of children out for a Sunday romp. As the rounded the bend and came into view, Raikes was shocked. The dozen or so boys, ranging in age from six to twelve, were dirty, unkempt, and angry. Cursing like hardened sailors, they pushed and shoved each other, viciously picking on the weakest members of the ragtag army. When a small child was knocked off his feet, those left standing laughed and made fun of him, kicking dirt into his face. Raikes had seen this same kind of behavior during his trips to the local prison. Yet in those cases it had been men involved in destructive actions; now it was mere lads. Looking back at the woman, he asked, who are these boys?

They are vermin, she told him. They work in the factories during the week and then raise holy hell on Sunday. You can not even go to church without hearing their vulgar voices. They break windows, steal us blind, and taunt us when we try to stop them. They need to rounded up and put away. What about their families? Those demons pretty much raise themselves. Their folks do not care. They are no better than street trash themselves. And they are taking over too. We are being overrun by this kind of trash. A few hours later, as Raikes returned to his home, he took a detour through the main part of Gloucester. Thanks to the Industrial Revolution, the city had doubled in population over the past twenty years. The publisher had initially chalked up the growth as a wonderful bonus for the city and its business. But now as he observed hundreds of filthy urchins mindlessly wandering the streets, he saw the other side of the growth. These children, who were working in the factories twelve hours a day, six days a week, were treated like animals by their employers. They also had no chance at an education, had never been taught any manners, and evidently had no guidance at home. They were mean, surly, disrespectful, and amoral. Worse yet, more were coming to town each week. So the problem was going to multiply. Something had to be done. Days later, sitting down with local business and community leaders, Raikes asked about the street kids. The responses he received were often laced with profanity. Sunday, once the best day of week, was now dreaded. These children were heathen, little better than rats. The rage caused by them, even among the clergy, was sobering. Raikes realized the children were not going anywhere. The factory bosses had to have them to manufacture their goods. So if the answer was not in forced removal and relocation, what was it? What could make the dramatic change needed to save this new generation of children that had been crated by the Industrial Age? A month later, while sitting at his desk pondering what he now saw and heard on the streets each Sunday, the publisher attempted to compose an editorial addressing the issue. Yet the only word he scratched out with his pen on a piece of paper was TRY. One word did not an editorial make, and so the paper ended up in the trash. Even to a man as brilliant as Raikes, there seemed to be no answer other than hiring more law enforcement officers on Sunday. Yet there had to be a better way. As it stood, most of these children were destined for the very prison he had helped clean up. Ironically, only behind bars would they have a chance to gain the tools they needed to become productive citizens. Over the next few weeks the word TRY kept echoing in the publisher' mind. It haunted him as he wrote, as he ate meals, and even as he attended church. Ultimately he became convinced that an inner voice was ordering him to try to save the children. This was to be his new cause, but where could he start? Even as a publisher, with all the power of the press, he seemed helpless. So for weeks while his desire to help increased, his hope of finding a way to inspire of positive change diminished. One day he stopped by the local jail to check on the reforms enacted there. As he watched the well behaved convicts, he realized that keeping the street kids busy, giving them something productive to do, and offering them a chance to improve themselves was the key to bringing peace back to Sundays. After all, if it was working with convicted criminals, why not with rowdy children? When he returned home, Raikes looked at his own ten children. They were polite, respectful and bright. That was because they had been raised in a clan, moral environment where they had been loved and educated. They had values because they had been taught them. If he could somehow teach these street kids some values, then they might be changed as well. At the very least it was an experiment worth attempting on a small scale.

In a section of the city know as Sooty Alley due to its decay and filth, Raikes gathered a few dozen children, hired a local school teacher, and found an empty building for a classroom. Underwriting the cost of the school himself, he got the children to attend by promising a noon meal, new clothing, and the chance to learn to read. The only requirement for the students was that they be respectful during their time at the school. Since the only available time for the learning sessions was Sunday, Raikes had his teacher use the Bible as the curriculum. As the weeks went by and the people who lived and walked in the areas around Sooty Alley noted that the streets were again quiet, they began to wonder what happened to the children who had once plagued them at every corner. When they discovered that Raikes had them in school, a few were happy, but surprisingly, many more were appalled. Business was not allowed to open on Sunday. This was the law. The law had been influenced by the church, which wanted to make sure people could attend Sunday services. Because Raikes was paying the teacher, she was breaking both city and church laws by working on Sunday. So even though his Sunday school sessions were making a huge dent in local crime, a large portion of the community, including several churches, wanted the facility shut down and a specific law passed that forbade the opening of any more such schools. Raikes had been a solid, well read student before entering the publishing field. The only reason he did not finish his studies at Cambridge was his father' death. Not only was he a good writer, but he knew the Bible better than anyone, even the clergy. So as he waged his new war of ideas, the publisher pulled out a number of examples of Sabbath schools dating back to even before the start of the organized church. He showed how even Jesus attended one of these schools on the Sabbath. Raikes also showed how some churches used Sunday services to instruct children in biblical principles. Because his school used the Bible as its textbook, he too was teaching children about Christianity. He argued that Christian education was the one hope these children had to escape a life of crime. His idea was also the only way he saw to reclaim the peaceful Sundays that had once been such a treasured part of life in Gloucester. Finally, when the criticism continued but no one offered a better alternative, he asked for time to prove that his concept would create lasting and meaningful change. A majority of those in the city agreed to give him a few months to prove his program had merit. With the success he had already seen, Raikes wanted to expand his program citywide. The first was money, which he had. The second was a plan. He had crated the first school on the fly, with little real thought to doing anything more than seeing if children would sit still from ten o'clock on Sunday morning until five in the afternoon. With the small, handpicked group it was working. But before he took it to hundreds, he needed to put together a plan that included goals and ways to reach them. The publisher's first and primary goal was to create good citizens of the street children. Raikes knew that almost all of the kids were beaten and abused at home and on the job. So his first rule for his Sunday schools was that teachers were to use only positive reinforcement with rewards employed to change behavior. Those rewards would be items the children would treasure, like new shoes, clothes, combs, and candy. The students would earn these rewards by being respectful to their teacher and classmates, by not using profanity, and by doing well in their lessons. Each teacher should gently push children to see their studies as a duty, thus improving their ambition so they could envision a life beyond the shabby lot that had been theirs since birth. Raikes also asked his teachers to find ways to encourage civic responsibility. He knew that if he could achieve the latter, he could eventually gain community and churchsupport for his project. The change of a hoodlum into a model citizen woudl prove the value of is idea. Thus he saw God's Word as the best printed model for this endeavor. For Raikes, using the Bible as the primary source of educating his charges had little to do with trying to spread faith. In truth the publisher considered himself a thoughtful believer. Faith played little or no part in why he called himself a Christian. Instead Raikes like to morality and the order he saw in following Christ' lead. Good behavior brought peace to a family and community. Following God's laws created the proper environment for business. Giving to the poor paved the way for respect and lowered crime rates. For Raikes, Christianity was the most

logical process to achieve a society that functioned for the good of everyone. Ye faith, which was supposed to be such an important facet of Christianity, was something the man rarely mentioned or even considered. He thought of himself as a man of ideas and action. To him, faith was far too abstract a concept too play an important role in his daily life. Within a year, thanks to his money and enthusiasm, Raikes watched his initial Sunday school spawn three more. Sixty students had now blossomed into several hundred. In much of the city, the streets were again peaceful on Sunday, and the discussion of the Sunday schools as being unlawful or immoral ended. This success prompted Raikes to publish and editorial on the new program in the Gloucester Journal in 1783. The front page piece did what it was intended to do: the Sunday school movement quickly gathered support from nobility, the area's businessmen, and even the factory owners. As the newspaper article was reprinted by other newspapers and periodicals across England, other communities jumped on board. Within a year there were eighteen hundred students in schools in Manchester and Salford. Twelve months later there were thousands more in similar programs fro Scotland to Wales. Most were using Railes's concepts in their teaching, and some were even obtaining the materials and books he was publishing for his schools in Gloucester. It was the books Raikes crated that really gave wings to his movement. His primers spelling books, readers, youth bibles, and materials on catechism gave schools a uniform way to reach the goals the publisher saw as important. Through the use of Christianity children could be taught to be good citizens. As crime rates dropped in every community where Sunday schools were established, Raikes's ideas proved their merit. A few years into his great experiment, Raikes found his mailbox overflowing with hundreds of letters from men and women wanting to know how to start Sunday schools in their own communities. Still, even though the changes many pastors saw were dramatic, churches shied away from getting involved. To many Christian leaders of the day, these Sunday schools still seemed to have a secular feel to them, even thought the Bible was being used as a teaching guide. Many even felt they were demonic in nature. This view dramatically changed when pastors took a deeper look at the children who had graduated from these programs. As young adults, the former students were not just good citizens; they were practicing their faith. They were attending church, raising their own families to revere the Bible, and embracing Jesus as their Savior. It was not just their minds that had been changed by Raikes's logical education; their hearts had been changed too. Witnessing that kind of transformation inspired scores of churches to open their doors to the Sunday school program. In just one generation after the beginning of the first school, denominations were publishing Sunday school materials for their own churches, and hundreds of thousands of children were enrolled in the classes. In what was then seen as a revolutionary idea, churches even began to seek out the children of poor, heathen families, transporting them to Sunday school and taking an active interest in their lives. Churches that in the past had all but ignored the poorest of the poor were now seeking them out. Sunday schools had created a revolution in the way congregations reached out in the community. Raikes was naturally pleased with the results of his great experiment. As Sunday schools were exported from Britain to Europe and America, he began to understand the power of this vision spurred on by the word TRY. This was probably his greatest accomplishment. Yet the joy he gained from this success was rooted in his mind, not his heart. His goal had always been to use Christianity to mold citizens, not to empower children with the knowledge of a living God. The latter was not a concept the publisher understood. Yet the same schools that revolutionize3d childhood outreach and presented faith to hundreds of millions also opened the door for Raikes's own spiritual growth. Long after he had established his movement, the publisher still made a habit of visiting his schools unannounced to view the work firsthand. One Sunday as Raikes quietly observed scores of children eagerly doing their lessons, he noted a small girl in a far corner whispering as she read from a book. With her piercing blue eyes focused on the words, the poorly dressed child did not notice the newspaper editor approach.

Leaning close to hear what she was reading, Raikes immediately recognized the words. It was Isaiah 53. As he heard he slowly work he way through the passage, it was as if he were hearing these words for the very first time. Looking into the girl's face, he sensed that she was not just reading them; she was feeling them. They were impacting here in a way that went beyond logic. For this child, Sunday school was not just a rational place of peace; it was a spiritual home. Suddenly there was presence around him, warmth he had never known and a joy he had never felt. His heart began to race, his mouth grew parched, and his blood rushed through his body. God was alive! He now knew it. For the first time, this feeling was not just in his head; it was in his heart was well. It was God who had told him to try. It was God who had showed him the way. For the first time in his life, Raikes was overcome with emotion created by faith. As he fell to his knees beside the little girl, he realized that his schools had not just brought civility to thousands of children; the schools had brought a living Christ into their lives. That was why the children had changed. And now a child who had found Jesus in one of his schools was introducing Raikes himself to the power of faith. With faith now stoking his logic, Raikes immersed himself in making sure the spiritual nature of his schools was emphasized above every other facet of the curriculum. He now clearly saw what he had creat4ed in following Jesus instructions to feed my lambs. In the year 1788, just seven years after the Sooty School began and with the movement already spreading across the globe, John Wesley said of Railes's greatest legacy, I verily think these Sunday schools are one of the noblest specimens of charity which have been set on foot in England since William the Conqueror. A generation later Raikes looked at what he had initiated and said: The world marches forth o the feet of the little children, but who can doubt that there is today a desperately important educational task for the children, whether through the Sunday school, or some other format. To change the world, reach the children! If the glory of God be promoted in any, even the smallest degree, society must reap some benefit. If the good seed be sown in the mind at an early period of human life thought it shows itself not again for many years, it may please God, at some future period, to cause it to spring up, and to bring forth a plentiful harvest. By Raikes's death in 1811, just thirty years after he drew up plans for his first school, more than half a million children were regularly attending Sunday school in Great Britain. Twenty year later that number had grown to a point where a quarter of the English population attended Sunday school once a week. As a teaching and soul saving dynamic of the modern church, nothing come close to having the impact of Sunday schools. For more than two centuries they have been the most powerful tool in educating children about every facet of Christianity. Countless millions who otherwise never would have heard the Word found Christ through the efforts of a Sunday school teacher. These classes have become the primary birthplace of teachers, preachers, and missionaries. Yet Raikes has impacted every child in the free world in another way that he had not foreseen. First in England and then in the United States, Raikes's Sunday school model and the results it produced created a movement for free public education. Children who once went to work before their teens were taken out of factories and fields and placed into schools. The educational system we have today was spun off of Raikes's Sunday schools. A trip to interview a gardener opened up the door to faith as no other movement ever has. The legacy of this small town publisher is still being realized every time a Sunday school teacher presents a new lesson in faith to one of his or her pupils.

What Raikes gave a few ragged kids in Gloucester paved the way for salvation for hundreds of millions, including his own. Few have left the world with a greater legacy of faith than Robert Raikes. ~ Book of Isaiah: Learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow…and you shall eat the good of the land. Luke 10:29 Every day help someone who can never reciprocate. This is my obligation. ~ John Wooden's PHILOSOPHY The great UCLA basketball coach The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. ~ Mahatma Gandhi ~ Those who bring Sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. Be a Bringer of the LIGHT. ~ proverb: A good person leaves an inheritance to their children’s children. What kind of inheritance are you leaving? ~ FREE eBook: The Miracle of Tithing; by Mark Victor Hansen http://www.markvictorhansen.com/freegift.php http://www.scribd.com/doc/39484491 Book Summary: The Miracle of Tithing http://www.scribd.com/doc/39746799 ~

Plant a Row of Fresh Organic Food for the poor, for your local food bank or for your local soup kitchen http://foodbank77.insanejournal.com http://row2grow.insanejournal.com http://sorendissing.livejournal.com ~